Sweep This One Away

John Bragg wrote Exit 8, a taut single minded tale that lends itself well to the mentality of a mountaineer. Based on his success in that novel, I bought The Broom of God, knowing that as a first novel it probably wasn’t going to be as good, but the murder of a mountain climber in Patagonia was too intriguing. Unfortunately, Broom of God starts falling apart and unravelling around page 150. The mediocre writing before that was easy enough to overlook because of the locale and story. But then it flounders with too many unnecessary characters, poorly executed POV transitions, inexplicable tense shifts, and repetition. Too many scenes and characters with little to no purpose and you can just feel the author stumbling along trying to find his narrative drive, relying on cliché. Too bad, because Exit 8 is mostly excellent writing.

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